As I've come to expect, everyone brought some gems to the game this week. At one point my contenders for winner numbered four possibilities. But first some honorable mentions.
Actually, the first one isn't so much honorable as it is bewilderable. I can't figure out what this one of Stan's is about to save my life:
Mice, ducks, dogs, chipmunks
And a castle in the swamp
The stuff of empire
Castle in the swamp? Holy Grail? Anyone?
I liked these two from JohnnyPants:
Preachy animals
Tell me how to live my life
A pet peeve of mine
Was he the Devil?
Or did he just enjoy pranks?
Eve died not knowing
The first one is great not just for its peevishness but also for revealing yet another thing about the world that honks off Johnny Sweatpants, that lovable grouch. And I love the idea of the Fall of Man being a practical joke, just for the hideously disproportionate nature of the situation. Like when Nelson delivers a "haw haw" after Skinner announces Bart will spend the rest of his life in a mental institution to learn some manners. Cold and naked now? Gotta fight for food? Childbirth is painful and it's all your fault? For you and the countless billions of your descendants? Psyche!
AC scored with this one:
mist cradles farmland
rays of sun pierce eastern sky
foghorn leghorn crows
Look at those first two lines! Pure haiku beautification with no irony! Nicely crafted, AC, and extra cred for not using the standby "Cherry blossoms fall." (Or should I say "Stan-by?") Capping it off by softly honoring one of the cartoon world's biggest blowhards is excellent.
I always love it when HHD results in smack talk, and 50PageMcGee got this week's started right away by presenting an unfavorable psychoanalysis of each of the main players from Winnie the Pooh. This was controversial because JPX did the exact same thing a couple of weeks ago. This is so awesome I may myself purposely rip off JPX's body of work every week from now on, just to keep things interesting.
Anyway, of that batch my fave is this one:
Lottie the Otter
Where the fuck did you come from?
And why should i care?
What I love about this is the second two lines exactly match what went through my head when reading the line "Lottie the Otter." I had to Wiki LtO just to confirm that was a real Pooh character. (As you may suspect/know already, this was a character created by Disney).
Catfreeek had a number of good ones, including asking some hard questions about living in the Flintstoverse with all those animal appliances. But here was my favorite:
'member Jabber Jaw
Stupid shark, talked like Curly
Brody blew him up
Ha! Brody. Bringing him in is a perfect example of the mash-up, one of my favorite modern narrative devices. And I'd been kind of hoping Jabber Jaw would show up.
True to form, the back end of the day was graced by a number of poems from my sister, braving Blogger's persnickity bitchery to bust them out. I liked the commentary here:
I'm proactively
hating Marmaduke. But that's
acceptable, right?
Acceptable? I'd say it's required. That stupid mutt is leering at me from bus stops all over town
Give me Babe the Pig.
"That'll do pig, that'll do."
I'm a crying mess.
Oh yeah, me too. So there.
But what of the winners? And the three would-bes? Here are the works that bonked around in my nogging jostling for winner. From HandsomeStan:
Fire at the old mill???
Lassie, tell us what's wrong, girl!!!
Oh - she's gotta pee
This one held the top spot for a while, and special kudos to Stan for getting some shots in from the freakin' airport before his vacation. I hope he's basking in some rays at the very moment I type this.
Of course, giving him the win is problematic, as 1)he just gave it to me and 2)he isn't in the damn country right now and might not have any idea. Luckily, by day's end he was outstripped by no less than three other players.
Julie had two that could've been winners:
Big bird's nest must stink.
Gordon's window is right there
Looking at big turds.
One key thing that Haiku Hump Day does is bring out these great "behind the scenes" perspectives on our old familiar friends from TV and cinema. This is not only a great example of that, it's got the fantastic pun "Big Turd."
What is it like when
Miss Piggy and Kermit fuck?
I will never tell.
Another great look behind the curtain, with the added zing that Julie somehow knows the answer to this question. If I can, I will make her tell.
Either of those could earn the win, but I was saved from the controversy of awarding my wife a second time by the two poems that really had me wringing my brains. From DCD:
'Nother order in!
Earthquake pills and Batman wings.
Thank you, Wile E!
So much to like here. The funny perspective, the word "'nother", obviously truncated for syllabic reasons but also fleshing out the character of the ACME warehouse guy, but oh, that second line:
"Earthquake pills and Batman wings." Seven syllables that deftly capture the Coyote's doomed eternal quest: the outlandish plots he must resort to, his strange relationship to the ACME company and the bizarre items they make available. It doesn't hurt that it sounds like a line from that Favorite Things song from The Sound of Music.
Even that brilliance must take runner-up to the winner, from JPX:
Top Cat was a jerk
An antisocial grifter
Cats should not wear hats!
I know I gave the game away in the title, but I couldn't help it because it's such a great string of words. The humor is boosted by the callback JPX does in the following haiku:
Yogi Bear stole stuff
Was unapologetic
Bears should not wear hats
Notably, there is no exclamation point. It specifically takes feline haberdashery to ruffle JPX's fur, which of course invokes the memory of one of literature's most sociopathic animals...
Ultimately, despite the time weighing my choices, it wasn't to hard to award JPX. I thought he graciously accepted the innocent intentions behind Poohgate, and, well, there's that exclamation point. I might have fun watching Johnny Sweatpants being a cranky old crank, but he doesn't hold a candle to his brother.
Congratulations JPX! That really made me laugh.
Thanks guys!
